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(excerpt)
She banged the door in my face.
She refused to take the money due to her!
The next step the parly took was downright singular!
She went to my club.
Damme, to a feller’s club!
The Secretary tried to disperse her: and failed.
She remained on the premises, squatting on the green lawn, and wept loudly!
Facing the sundry sahibs and memsahibs, poised at’em at an alternating angle of forty-five degrees, a living metronome, the woman swang, pulled her hair, tore up her clothes, and wailed, “O my mothers and fathers! I am a poor woman! I am starving! My children are starving! H. Hatterr sahib owes me money! He owes me money!”
Damme, damme, damme!
Wham!
Fellers out East do away with themselves following such exhibitions against themselves!
The sahibs, who had reluctantly heard her poignant sorrow, were dumbfounded!
Right through the curry-courses, not a feller could cough up a single word, except such sundry expressions of pain as, “The fellah is a cad, sir!” “Gad, the man wants a birching!”
While commenting in this derogatory vein was going on behind my back, the Club Secretary, Harcourt Pankhurst-Sykes, summoned an extraordinary meeting.
And the agenda alleged that I, H. Hatterr, fellow-member of the Club, was letting down my brother-sahibs!
As a member of the Club, I owed on drinks, same as any other feller.
Black on white, and I was bound to honour the chits.
Yet, the Secretary held that too against me!
In the light of the exhibition made by the dhobin, extreme loss of confidence in my integrity prevailed in the Club.
At the extraordinary meeting, thank ..., ideals came to my rescue.
I avoided all mention of the dhobin.
I never gave away a woman, not even a dhobin!
And I spoke at the meeting concisely.
“If you censure me,” I said to the fellers, “I won’t disguise the fact that it would be a blow to my prestige. If the Club is so dam’ keen on members’ financial status quo, the Club should advance me a loan. I am forthwith applying to you for same. Otherwise, damme, Harcourt Pankhurst-Sykes, you can’t touch me! Hands off, I say! Can’t nail me to the barn-door for nothing! Otherwise, damme, I shall see the whole bunch of you in hell first! You can’t hold lucre same as honour! Mark my words, damme, all of you!”
After being kept waiting for nearly four hours—during which time the extraordinary meeting were dealing with the liquor contractor, the scavenger’s wage-increase application, every blasted thing but my matter—I was unanimously declared a defaulter, blackballed, and struck off!
Hell, did you ever!
I hadn’t for a moment imagined that they would do that to me, swine fever to ’em! and all because of a dhobin!
When I heard the committee-decision, the earth beneath my feet felt like being pulled away by a supernatural sub-agent!
Till this happened, I don’t mind admitting that I had regarded life as a bed of roses: and thorns absent.
I ate the finest chilly-hot curries in the land, did a good square job of it, remained a sahib, and life on the whole had been fine.
I walked from the Club, alone, and when in the digs, wept without restraint.
Banerrji called in soon after.
I told the feller I didn’t wish to breathe no more. I meant to do the Dutch act to myself that very evening.
“Mr H. Hatterr,” said my brother, upset to his foundations, “I have already heard that you have been mercilessly kicked out. I came to appeal, please, do not contemplate the drastic action! Life is sacred. No man may destroy same. Excuse me, but my heart bleeds for you! May I, therefore, make a present to you of this parcel of an all-in-one pantie-vest? It has just come from Bond Street of dear England. It is delightfully snug, made in Huddersfield, forming no wrinkles. Its colour is a charming peach, with a stylish elastic round the waist and the knees. Also, it has got gay little le-dandy motifs in lazy-daisy stitch, and will make a perfect foundation garment for you in the coming severe winter. Originally, I had ordered the parcel for my own use. Please accept it with my kindest regards.”
This spontaneous gesture from a true friend, the gift of a valuable garment, and made out of pure love, braced me up instantly.
“Banerrji,” I said, accepting the pantie, my eyes still red from the previous orgy of grief, “don’t worry, old feller. I won’t take the drastic step. To hell with the sahibs! Not an anna-piece for the drink chits! Not a ruddy chip! Damme, I will go Indian! Live like you fellers, your neighbourhood, and no dam’ fears! Go to flannel dances! No fancy rags! The sahibs have kicked me. But for that kick, mark me, I will return ten, till the seats of their pants wear out!”
And, by all the pits of the Punjab country-side, I tried to do so, and live up to it!
I went completely Indian, and kicked out of the house the only sahib who came to condole!
The chap was the hearty sort, respected no institutions, and had made me wink off my real origin. He had got me into the Club under false pretences, as an India-born, pure Cento-per- Cento Anglo-Saxon breed. Consequence, used to flirt with the wife as his natural due.
To celebrate the bust-up with the feller, and, to spite the Club, I gave Banerrji the exclusive news-item for his uncle’s fortnightly journal: “Ex-member of the Sahib Club kicks a member out of the house! Mr Haakon K. Olsen, prominent Norwegian grid-bias battery manufacnurer, defies Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife commandment! Involved in the eternal triangle! Alleged found making love 10 the ex-mem-ber’s wife!”
Thereupon, a social highlight by the name of A. Arnot-Smith, O.B.E., came to see me.
Said A-Smith, “It is the climate, old chap. Fellows can’t help loving other fellows’ wives. Gad, no need to kick up a row! Think of the Club, man! You are running down a fellow-European by allowing trash like this to be published in vernacular rags. Jerry Olsen’s a scout. We don’t wish to take notice, but if you want to prosecute the paper, the Club would render financial aid. It will all be confidential, of course. Sir Cyril and I strongly advise legal action.”
I threw A. Arnot-Smith out of the house, and wished his ancestors, and Sir Cyril’s, to a hotting up in Flames.
I told Banerrji of the facts.
“Do not let Mr Albion Arnot-Smith, O.B.E, persecute you,” said my brother. “You may regard yourself as merely human. It is rightly said, Sie vos non vobis.”
“What does it mean?”
“It is Latin. Nevertheless, I am saying, now that you have openly turned Indian, you don’t have to depend on any O.B.E. of the sahib community for kind regards. You are going to be independent. As my best friend, you shall have a job too. I have arranged for an appointment for you. You meet tomorrow Mr Chari-Charier, the Indian extreme-wing gentleman. He will give you a journalistic job on his daily without question. He is a great friend of the underdog. Mr Chari-Charier himself was struck off from All Souls’ College, Oxford. He has a very high regard for struck-off gentlemen.”